So, I'm pretty behind on the popular books, but I finally managed to read this.

I was taking a break from reading Shadowhunter Academy on my phone and I flew through this book. It was my first dystopian in a while, just because I've needed a break since my Hunger Games/Divergent/Matched dystopian binge.

I do want to watch the movie now and will probably review it once I get the chance to read it.

For those of you who don't know, The 5th Wave is about an alien invasion. Basically, a mothership appears and is just hovering over the Earth for 10 days, making no contact with humans at all to show friendly intentions or otherwise. On the tenth day, all the power cuts out. This is the beginning of the waves.

The second wave is flooding of all major coastline cities. The third wave is an airborne strand of Ebola. The fourth wave is the aliens coming down to Earth. There is time between these waves to allow humans to be wiped out before the next one hits.

Our story picks up after the fourth wave with a girl named Cassie. She's 16 and is still alive after all these attacks. That's all I'm going to leave you with because I don't want to spoil anything, but we do have more narrators than just Cassie.

Overall, I had a very fun time reading this book, it was the perfect blend of a lighthearted tone and seriousness. The characters are great and very real as well as a plotline that keeps developing as the story goes on. The reason I gave it 4 stars is because I found myself able to easily predict each development in the story and how it would play out. This often makes me sad in books because I want to be surprised and kept on my toes rather than just waiting for something to happen.

That's all I can say without spoiling you, so I advise you to go read The 5th Wave if you haven't already and to come back so we can discuss. Bye non-spoilers!

Okay, so I'm going to try my best to categorize this, but we'll see how this goes. There's more that I want to talk about than just my usual character breakdown.

Cassie: So, everyone always talks about how much they love Cassie, but I didn't find myself a huge fan of her. Sure, she had her likeable qualities, but not enough that I'd say she's an awesome character.

I appreciated that she was a real person with real concerns such as buying tampons and keeping up her hygeine. She was really funnily awkward, like how she kept wanting to say to Ben Parish, "Remember the babies?" It showed that she wasn't always composed, but she doesn't need to be either.

My problem with her was how naive she was, mainly when it came to Evan. With the Crucifix Soldier, she kept her head level and knew what she was doing, but the moment she met an attractive guy, all sense went away. She just accepted what he was before it actually occured to her to try and question whether or not he was actually a human. I also didn't like how fast they progressed in a relationship, but I guess Rick Yancey meant to show it as time moving slower when civilization is gone.

I love the fact that Cassie kept Bear with her through everything and had conversations with it regularly. I thought it was really funny and added a bit of sadness to show how quickly she had to age.

In the last part of the book, I liked her for her cleverness in breaking in and taking down the aliens herself. She didn't wait for Ben to come up with a plan, she just did the first thing that popped into her head and expected him to go with it. I like that she took charge and I definitely thing that she is going to clash with Ringer in the next book.

Just as a side note, I was talking to a friend of mine and she mentioned how it's so often in books and movies that stories rarely have two named female characters that talk about something other than a man. I am hoping that this series does not actually fall into that category. If you know any books that do or don't fall into that category, let me know in the comments. I'd be interested to see what you can come up with, maybe try applying the last three books that you read.

Ben/Zombie: I had mixed feelings about Zombie. I liked him for the most part, but he had these little quirks that made me want to hate him.

First of all, the moment he was introduced and we ignored his name, I knew it was Ben Parish. I don't know if Rick Yancey meant for this to be obvious or not, but I felt like it was a huge sign just blinking in my face.

The story about his sister and how he left made me partially hate him but more so just feel bad for him. He kept referring to his sister as Sissy and, I mean no offense in this, but WHO CALLS THEIR SISTER SISSY? I just felt like it was a kind of strange nickname and didn't add any real depth to their relationship. The fact that he kept his sister's necklace made me love their sibling relationship a lot. I felt like there was such a strong sibling bond apparent in all the characters that I want to see more books where siblings don't get along because not all siblings are loving best friends.

I also loved the sibling relationship between Zombie and Nugget because it showed how he was healing from that loss. It was so funny that it came full circle, with Nugget feeling like both Zombie and Cassie were his siblings, which would be kind of awkward if they ended up together.

My main problem with Zombie was at the end, just because it gave a last impression of him being weak and needy. That was my main impression of him by the end of the book, which made me really dislike him. It wasn't necessarily that I didn't like him or his character, but more so that his character was ruined for me in those last few chapters.

Evan: Okay so I knew that Evan was the Silencer that was following her from the moment he was introduced. First off, he knew her nickname and claimed that it was from her drivers license, but YOUR DRIVERS LICENSE SAYS YOUR FULL NAME. Not only that, but he was just too perfect to be a human because you don't go through all of that and come out unscathed.

I was talking to my friends who had seen the movie about all of my theories when I was only 100 pages in and they told me that I wasn't going to enjoy the book very much if I kept up with all of my predictions. While it did bother me that I was so easily able to predict everything before it happened, I was still entertained by the execution of the story.

I did like Evan as a character and I think that his internal conflict will provide an interesting plot point later on. So, no, I don't think he died. I do think that Rick Yancey will carefully avoid putting him in The Infinite Sea for most of the book, but I do think that he'll make an appearance by the end. While I was upset that he disappeared, I do think that it was for the right reasons and cleared his name with a lot of readers.

Nugget/[CRAP I FORGOT HIS REAL NAME]: So Nugget was such a good character because, as sweet as he was, he kept pushing himself to keep going until Cassie came for him. Every time he said his sister was coming for him and Zombie tried to figure out how to let him down lightly, I was screaming in my head, "NO ZOMBIE THE KID IS RIGHT LET THE KID DREAM BECAUSE IT'S NOT DREAMING IT'S WAITING FOR THE END OF THE BOOK!"

Needless to say, I do think that the next books will be interesting to see how Cassie adjusts to having a little brother that knows how to shoot a gun and is faster than her. His innocence has been destroyed by the situtation and I think it'll be heartbreaking for her to watch.

Ringer: I loved Ringer so much because she wasn't afraid to let herself adapt to this new world. She knew that she had to be tough and wanted to thrive in this place so that no one would ever think of killing her, which made her such an interesting character. The amount of insight she had into everything was amazing and she was quick enough to jump to the conclusion that they were the fifth wave that she thought about it but didn't let it sit and keep denying it.

She's just super level headed even in all the craziness going on and doesn't allow herself to become weak, even if it means not getting attached to people. I hope to read from her POV soon because she's such an interesting character.

Ships: So I ship Evan and Cassie just because I feel like they have a lot of chemistry and also because Evan is so devoted to Cassie. They're cute and it doesn't feel one way like shipping Ben and Cassie would be.

I also ship Ringer with Ben/Zombie since Ringer needs to teach herself how to love again while Zombie is so quick to love and to trust. They have a good contrast and it would be a lot of fun to watch.

Overall, I had a lot of fun reading The 5th Wave, even though there were a lot of plot twists that I found very obvious. I'm going to be reading and reviewing the next book soon as well as watching the movie.

Let me know what you thought of The 5th Wave and what your ships are in the comments.